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This is an old book (publish date 1941) and it reads like an old book. The rigorous standards of scholarship that a reader of a biography or any history expects to see today are absent (for example: there are no citations, end notes or footnotes). As the title indicates, the main focus of the book was not so much a full-scale biography of Woodrow Wilson - although the book (minimally) achieves that. Instead Loth devotes a large portion of the book to Wilson's valiant, if misguided, efforts and subsequent tragic failure to get the Versailles Treaty accepted first in Paris by the other Allies, and then by a recalcitrant and highly partisan U.S. Senate.

Wilson's life from birth up to the end of WWI seems to be rushed through. Loth appears to be in a hurry to get to what he wants to discuss: the League of Nations fight. He swiftly moves through Wilson's education growing up in various parts of the South. Indeed, he makes references throughout the book to Wilson's being a Southerner by birth, upbringing, and temperament. At times this seems overdone.

Loth breezes past the Graduate School controversy at Princeton University as well as Wilson's two-year tenure as Governor of New Jersey. The entire election of 1912 is decided in a single page! Amazing, as this was one of the most critical elections in U.S. history. This is a glaring weakness of the book, especially considering that Loth assumes that the reader is familiar with the issues revolving around that election. He generally demonstrates this in other areas as well - not delving in-depth to set the stage for things that happened in Wilson's life.

On his treatment of Wilson, he is generally balanced if not leaning slightly to the sympathetic side. He does not talk of Wilson's deteriorated mental state following his stroke, and only briefly mentions that Wilson was sometimes not rational in his views of certain people. Wilson's family is mentioned only when seemingly necessary. Loth does probe his friendship with Colonel Edward House, and this proves to be his most insightful area of interest in the book. In short, this is a much-dated and imperfect work on a President that seems more and more to be forgotten.